An instrumented glove for monitoring forces during object manipulation

Upper limb rehabilitation concentrates on restoring the operations of arms, hands and fingers. This integrated measuring device is in the form of a glove which records the force exerted for fine motor activities and hence indicates to the physiotherapist who guides the patient to regulate the force as per the need and thus avoid applying unwanted strain. Though this device has not yet been fabricated in India, it is developed abroad by NexGen [1] and TekScan [2]. The block diagram includes sensing the signal followed by processing this signal and passing this processed signal into the ADC Converter and finally to the Microcontroller. This unit is assembled and the circuit is then attached to the glove. When tested on subjects, the device indicated an error of ±0.02kgf. The device has been tested on fifteen subjects who had to carry out three main activities subdivided into two parts. The most imperative conclusion that can be inferred from the variability in forces applied by subjects is that grasp mechanism is an individual trait. However, some basic trends were observed with reference to changes in diameter, height and weight of the objects that were used for manipulation.